The Pixar Conspiracy Theory Is What the Internet Was Made For
John Negroni's theory, that every film made by Pixar occurs in the same universe and connected to every other Pixar film, relies on the premise that Boo from Monsters Inc. is actually a time-traveling witch from Brave. His hypothesis is knotty at times, and requires that you believe in far-fetched, perhaps loopy ideas—and it's exactly everything right with the Internet.
John Negroni's theory — that every film made by Pixar occurs in the same universe and connected to every other Pixar film — relies on the premise that Boo from Monsters Inc. is actually a time-traveling witch from Brave. His hypothesis is knotty at times, and requires that you believe in far-fetched, perhaps loopy ideas—and it's exactly the kind of theory that thrives on the Internet.
You really should go read Negroni's masterwork, but the basic premise is that animals who could talk like those in A Bug's Life and Finding Nemo and sentient robots like Buzz Lightyear were set into motion by the blue goo that Merida (from Brave) discovered and turned her mom into a bear (a snapshot of the timeline Negroni created appears on the right) and result in human-less world populated by bugs. Along with his theory, Negroni includes some mind-shattering revelations, such as Andy from Toy Story 3 receiving a post card from Elle and Carl in Up (photo by Buzzfeed Rewind):
And that would make it seem that Andy is related to Carl and Ellie, and ... and... sorry, I'm just picking the pieces of my brain matter off the floor. "Half of me believes they totally did this from the get-go since they are more than capable of doing something so amazing," Negroni told Entertainment Weekly. "While the other half of me realizes that this is my love for Pixar movies manifesting itself in over-the-top conspiracy theories."
We hope Pixar never answers that question. What Negroni did in putting his theory out into the digital abyss of the Internet isn't unlike what we've seen fans do with Lost, what viewers did (and are still doing) with Inception, and, more recently, the debate over hidden messages in this past season of Mad Men. Remember when Megan Draper was going to die because she was actually Sharon Tate? That was pretty fun.
The bottom line is that this sort of fan-generated conspiracy theory makes it fun for the rest of us. Fans are figuring out imaginative ways to make watching movies and television enjoyable in a way that filmmakers and show runners can't. And for that sake, we kinda hope that Pixar never really gives a distinct and official answer to Negroni's theorem (Jalopnik has a theorem-killing interview with Jay Ward, the Cars Legacy Guardian at Pixar Animation Studios .)
After all, remember the inevitable letdown when Mad Men creator Matthew Weiner had to come clean and tell us that no one was dying this season? We'd hate to see Pixar do the same and ruin our newfound belief that Boo is indeed a time-traveling witch who is planting easter eggs in every Pixar movie, and whose magic eventually forced all humans to go into space.